


pink jumper guy

by spacetriangles



Category: SEVENTEEN (Band)
Genre: First Dates, First Meetings, Grocery Shopping, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, M/M, im glad thats a tag, nothing too bad tho dont worry, some awkward moments
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-25
Updated: 2017-07-07
Packaged: 2018-11-19 00:20:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 12,807
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11301855
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spacetriangles/pseuds/spacetriangles
Summary: Hansol should have honestly expected for there to be something wrong after taking a glance at the guy's cart.





	1. Chapter 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> this was honestly supposed to be shorter but i wouldnt. stop. typing. sorry if the ending seems a bit meh, i just rly wanted to stop writing

Truth be told, Hansol isn’t the biggest fan of grocery shopping, but who else is gonna do it? Surely not his good for nothing lazy roommates who think that it’s okay to boss him around just because he’s younger than them. More than once has he come home without the cake mix that Mingyu asked him for because he happened to “forget.”

It’s probably for the best that he goes though, otherwise he would never be leaving the apartment other than when he has to go to classes. Now, one might think that hanging out at the grocery store isn’t the best place for a nineteen-year-old to spend his time at, but the place has its perks. For one, they give out free samples of that cheese that nobody really wants to buy, and who is he to say no to some free cheese? Other than that, Hansol has a fun time sneaking glances at the other shoppers and trying to piece together their life stories just from the things in their cart.

It’s when he strolls into the ‘Confectionery’ aisle that he notices him. It’s a guy around his age, he guesses, who’s also around his height, though maybe shorter. He doesn’t know if it’s just him, but he feels that there’s some sort of weird experience that happens whenever you come across someone your age in the grocery store. Does he maybe feel competitive? Does he want to assert dominance as the superior young adult? Or does he feel camaraderie? Maybe a mix of all of the above? Either way, he finds himself paying extra attention to him.

He’s got short blonde hair and is wearing a pink jumper, and Hansol can’t help but find it a bit endearing. His cart is mostly empty, save for exactly three mangoes, a box of Oreos and a bottle of vodka. Staring at his cart, Hansol feels this weird spiritual connection with it’s contents because _same_.

The guy’s currently staring at a row of different gummy candies, but he seems torn between which ones to chose. Hansol stares at him for a while, waiting to see what he’ll settle on. Though as the seconds pass, it doesn’t seem like he’ll decide any time soon. Instead of staring at him like a weirdo, Hansol decides to continue with his shopping and pushes his cart.

Another person enters the aisle. A middle-aged man who looks like he might be a dad and he seems like the type of person who would have his shit together. This man, however, doesn’t seem like he has time to waste. He stops near the guy with the pink jumper, doing that thing that you do in stores when you want to look at a section but there’s already someone there so you kinda hover around waiting them to move, except pink jumper guy isn’t moving, and Hansol starts to feel stressed.

Why is he stressing? It’s not like it matters to him whether the man gets his gummy candies. Hansol thinks he’s probably stressed for the pink jumper guy. He wants him to realize that there’s a person there and to move aside, but he’s not moving! Should he do something? God, no. Why would he do anything? He should be minding his own business and go get the Lindt chocolates that Seungcheol asked him for.

And yet, he can’t find it in himself to look away. The more that time passes, the more that Hansol can’t stand watching this. Surely the man would have asked the pink jumper guy to move by now, but they’re both just fucking standing there. Why the hell hasn’t the pink jumper guy decided on the candy yet? It’s been at least a good 3 minutes by now. What the hell is this? And why can’t Hansol just move along?

He decides that the reason he seems stuck there is because pink jumper guy is around his age, and so he feels somewhat responsible for what’s happening. Don’t ask him for the logic behind it, he just _feels_ it. He holds his breath for a few more moments, but when nothing happens he decides that enough is enough.

He walks up to the pink jumper guy and taps his shoulder. “Hey, sorry. Could I please just reach for those Sour Patch Kids over there?” he asks him in the politest way he can.

Pink jumper guy startles upon hearing him, and he turns to look at him with the widest eyes Hansol has ever seen. The man takes this occasion to reach for one of the bags of candies and mutters something under his breath as he walks away.

Hansol should be feeling relieved that he no longer has to witness the painful situation, but he thinks he might have made a mistake because the guy in front of him starts tearing up.

“Hey, are you okay?” Hansol asks him, definitely taken aback but also worried that this might have been his fault.

“Oh god, I’m so sorry,” the guy says as he starts to choke up. Hansol is sure that he can’t remember the last time somebody looked at him with such remorse in their eyes.

“Hey, hey,” he calls gently, hovering his hands around the guy’s shoulders because he kind of wants to comfort him, but he doesn’t know if that would be weird or not. “It’s okay. What are you apologizing for?”

“I just,” the pink jumper guy stutters, but before he can finish his sentence he lets out a huge sob.

Hansol isn’t sure what to do anymore so he decides to just pull the guy into his arms and to soothingly pat his back. After maybe a minute or so, he seems to have calmed down and Hansol lets him go and instead places his hands on the guy’s shoulders.

“Hey man, what’s wrong?” he tries asking again, this time making his voice significantly softer.

“Oh my god, I’m such a mess.” The guy looks up at him with a look of shock, as if he can’t believe that he just cried into a stranger’s arms in the middle of a candy aisle.

“Yeah, I could tell that. One glance at your cart and I already knew that something was up,” Hansol jokes. He’s trying to lighten the mood so that he doesn’t have to see pink jumper guy cry again.

It works and the guy let’s out a small chuckle. “is it that obvious?”

“A bit. What’s your name? I’m Hansol.” He lets go of the guy’s shoulders and gives him some space.

“Seungkwan,” he answers as he looks down and sniffs a bit.

“Alright, nice to meet you Seungkwan.” He smiles at him. “Is there any particular reason you wouldn’t stop staring at those candies for a solid 4 minutes?”

Seungkwan smiles sheepishly and nods a bit. “Yeah, it’s mostly because I’m the most indecisive person I know. I did get, uh, slightly lost in thoughts though,” his voice trails off.

Hansol hums and nods in acknowledgement. “We’ve all been there. Do you want to talk about what’s bothering you? It’s totally fine if you don’t.”

“Oh please, I wouldn’t want to bore you with my life story or anything.” He waves his hand as if to dismiss it.

“Nah man it’s fine. It’s not like grocery shopping is the most thrilling activity out there. We could both do our shopping and you could tell me your story,” Hansol says cheerfully.

Seungkwan smiles shyly at him. “I mean sure, but I warned you.”

They start walking down the aisles and picking up various food items that they need as Seungkwan starts telling Hansol about how he met this person, and they’d been friends for years until recently something bad happened.

“I swear I can’t believe he would do that. You think you know someone and then they just stab you in the back like that!” Seungkwan huffs as he throws a box of Frosted Flakes into his cart.

“So, what exactly did he do?” Hansol’s curious to find out after Seungkwan had told him about how wonderful their friendship was.

“He sent screenshots of our _private_ conversation to someone! Can you believe that?” He turns to Hansol, looking for validation.

If he’s gonna be honest, Hansol has had his fair share of conversations that he’s screenshotted, but clearly this was something of a bigger scale.

“I mean people screenshot convos all the time, but what exactly made this so bad?” he presses, curiosity getting the best of him.

Seungkwan presses his lips into a thin line and seems to contemplate something. “Okay. Well. This might not come as a shocker to you, having seen my mannerisms and all, but I may or may not be kinda gay, alright?”

“Okay. I mean a lot of people are kinda gay.” He thinks about himself and his own sexuality. It wouldn’t be wrong to consider Hansol “kinda gay” as well, though it’s not like he has much experience.

“Right, okay. So, I may be a little bit more than kinda gay. I might be super extra gay. And there might have been a guy who I was super extra gay _for_ , you know?” Hansol nods and lets him continue. “And I may or may not have talked about how super extra gay I am for this guy with my beloved friend. I think you can see where this is going.”

“Maybe? So you’re telling me he took screenshots of your gay convo and sent it to someone?” Hansol offers.

“Bingo. Except it wasn’t just _someone_. It was the _guy_ that I was super extra _gay_ for,” Seungkwan says angrily as he looks at the back of a Fruit Loops box.

“Oh, shit.” Hansol has to admit that that’s a pretty shitty thing to do. “And what happened?”

Seungkwan bitterly puts the box back down and continues walking. “Well, turns out that the guy is ‘not a homophobe, but’ he doesn’t feel comfortable hanging out with me anymore. Which sucks. Because he was one of the only friends I had. I don’t have that many friends, okay? I had like, four good friends and now the number is down to two.” He shows the number with his fingers. “Except the problem here is that my other two friends are still friends with the backstabber and the ‘not a homophobe.’”

“Oh, so you’re saying that they’re not on your side?” Hansol asks.

“Sort of?” Seungkwan gestures. “It’s like, they think that I’m overreacting and that it’s not that big of a deal. How am I supposed to hang out with people who invalidate my feelings like that? I should have never befriended those fucking heterosexuals.” Hansol laughs at that, and Seungkwan looks back at him with a slightly panicked expression. “Not that there’s anything wrong with being heterosexual,” he tries to say in case he might have offended Hansol.

“Don’t worry, I don’t _think_ I’m a heterosexual,” he says while still laughing a bit.

“Oh thank _god_ , I knew I could trust you, Hansol.” Seungkwan smiles at him. “But yeah. So basically, I guess I don’t have any friends anymore. I feel extremely empty and lonely, which is why I’m here to buy food in order to fill the void.”

Hansol gives him a genuine smile. “Well, if I were you I wouldn’t completely throw those friends away. The ‘not a homophobe’ maybe. Maybe the backstabber too. But you should at the very least talk things out with them. Even if you decide that you should end your friendship with them, it would be good to leave it on the best note possible.”

Seungkwan hums. “I guess you’re right. But why should I make an effort for them when they won’t even bother trying to understand how I feel?”

“That’s a good point. I think that it’s more for yourself than for them, though.” Seungkwan gives him a puzzled look before he continues. “What I mean is that maybe they don’t deserve to have you make that effort, but you’ll be the better person. And in the long run, it would make you feel better, because then you won’t have to carry the weight of a friendship turned sour.” Hansol pauses to take a look at Seungkwan. “You seem like the type of person who’d get petty easily- “

“Gee, thanks,” Seungkwan interrupts sarcastically.

Hansol laughs a bit and continues. “What I’m saying is that the best form of revenge is to become a better person than those who have done you wrong, you know?”

Seungkwan breathes in and thinks for a moment. “I guess you’re not _wrong_. But my immediate reaction is to throw a pity party for myself and never speak to them ever again.”

“Well, instead of doing that why don’t you go treat yourself and have a good time. After you’re done with that, go talk to them.” Hansol suggests. “I’m sure that after clearing your mind it’ll be a lot easier to talk about things rather than if you were to just spend your time thinking about it and being sad.”

“You know what Hansol? You’re right.” Seungkwan turns to look at him and nods. “I _will_ treat myself, I deserve it.”

“That’s great Seungkwan. I’m glad you won’t be downing that bottle of vodka any time soon,” he says as he points to the bottle in Seungkwan’s cart.

“Oh, well actually I should probably go put most of this stuff back if I’m not gonna be throwing that pity party. Wanna accompany me?”

“Sure.”

They keep walking around the store as Seungkwan insists on putting back the things exactly where he found them, because his mother raised him right and he’s not going to make the job harder for the people who work here. Hansol finds it admirable, and it makes him feel bad for all the times that he’s been lazy and left things here and there in the store. It’s not even a big deal, but Seungkwan makes it feel like it is.

At this point, Seungkwan’s pretty much only got the box of Oreos left and he insists that he at least gets himself that much. “It’s only a box of Oreos, it’s fine. I’m allowed.”

“Hey, I’m not stopping you.” Hansol raises his arms in defeat.

“Good. Even if you were stopping me I wouldn’t have listened to you,” he says and sticks his tongue out at him. “Well, okay, maybe I would have,” he adds in a lower tone after a second.

“What was that?” Hansol teases him.

“I said maybe I would have listened to you,” Seungkwan repeats, slightly exasperated.

“And why’s that?” he asks with genuine curiosity.

“Well, I mean. I don’t know. You just seemed so wise when you were telling me to treat myself earlier. I would have trusted you if you told me to not get the Oreos,” Seungkwan answers shyly.

Hansol smiles and looks at Seungkwan for a bit. “You’re so ready to trust a stranger, you should be more careful, you know?”

“Oh please.” Seungkwan snorts. “I’m not stupid. It’s not like I’m following you into your white van after you’ve promised me some candy.”

Hansol laughs at that. “Yeah? I’ll bet that if I did actually have a white van with candy you’d follow me,” he teases after having calmed down.

Seungkwan looks at him with a genuinely offended look. “That is so not true. Get out of my face.” He snorts and starts walking away.

“Hey, where are you going?” Hansol calls out with a slight pout.

“To pay for these, obviously,” Seungkwan replies as he turns back around, holding up the box of cookies.

“But I still have a few things left to get.” Hansol visibly pouts at him.

Seungkwan stands there, but after a moment he sighs and rolls his eyes. “Fine.” He walks back up to Hansol and drops the box into his cart. “Buy those for me, though.”

Hansol scoffs. “Are you serious?” He turns to look at Seungkwan with a look of disbelief.

“Yup.” Seungkwan smiles at him.

Hansol wants to give him a stern look, but he can’t stop the corners of his lips from quirking up. “Whatever,” he breathes out.

Seungkwan beams at him and they go to find the last of the items on Hansol’s mental grocery list. After having finally payed for all of the groceries, hansol and Seungkwan step outside and all of a sudden Hansol starts to panic a bit. He realizes that their time together has come to an end, and he’s not sure if he’ll ever see Seungkwan again.

Before he gets to say anything, Seungkwan turns to look at him. “Hey, uh. Remember when you said that I should treat myself?” Hansol nods at him. “Right. Well, I actually don’t know what to do for that. Like, I don’t…” He starts to wave his hands, hoping that they’ll explain for him.

“Oh.” Hansol stops to think for a bit. “Well, you could go see a movie, or maybe go to a café or nice restaurant. Maybe go buy yourself some new clothes?” he suggests.

Seungkwan nods but looks down for a bit, looking like he wants to say something. “Well, if I were to do any of those things, it would be kind of lonely if I were to do them alone. So I was wondering if you would-”

“Yeah,” Hansol answers, a bit _too_ eagerly he notes.

Seungkwan looks back up at him with what Hansol thinks may or may not be a slight blush and gives him a smile. “Okay, cool.”

“Is this? I mean. Are you, like? Would that be, like, a date?” Hansol stutters, getting really shy all of a sudden.

Seungkwan’s eyes widen and this time Hansol is pretty sure he’s blushing. “Well, uh. Would you like it to be?” he asks while sounding really unsure of himself.

Now Hansol feels his own cheeks heating up as well. “Yeah, that would be okay.” He avoids making eye contact.

“Alright. Okay. Then let’s go on a date,” Seungkwan says, sounding a bit more confident. They both stand there for a bit before he realizes something. He pulls out his phone and hands it to Hansol. “Give me your number.”

Hansol nods and types it in before handing it back. Seungkwan takes it and seems to be typing something. In a moment, Hansol feels his own phone vibrating.

“There. Now we can text each other to plan things.” Seungkwan seems satisfied with himself.

“Great! So then I’ll text you?” Hansol takes out his phone to save him as a contact.

“Or I’ll text _you_ , doesn’t matter.”

After Seungkwan grabs his box of Oreos, they say goodbye and part ways. Hansol feels a bit sad that they couldn’t spend more time together, but after fully realizing that he has a date to look forward to, he doesn’t feel as bad anymore.

 

 

“Dude, what the fuck took you so long?” Seungcheol asks from the couch he’s lounging on as Hansol enters the apartment.

“I haven’t even been gone for that long, though,” he replies with a frown.

“Actually,” Mingyu interrupts, entering the living room from the kitchen. “It usually takes you around 45 minutes or so. Today, you came back after 75 minutes,” he states matter-of-factly.

“Okay, and?” Hansol asks them, slightly annoyed as he takes of his shoes.  

“Well, what were you doing?” Seungcheol sits up to properly face his arriving roommate.

“Grocery shopping?” Hansol offers. After taking a look at their unamused expressions, he sighs. “And I may or may not have gotten myself a date. Maybe.”

Both of his roommates gasp. “Hansol Vernon Chwe? Got himself a _date_?” Mingyu asks in disbelief.

“Hell yeah!” Seungcheol exclaims as he completely stands up to face Hansol. “Oh, man. See I told you that it was good for you! You would have never met anyone if you’d always just spend your time cooped up in here.”

“Yeah, yeah. Whatever.” He waves them off.

“No, not ‘whatever,’ this is great!” Mingyu claps his hands. “Tell me about her, what does she look like? How’d you guys meet?”

“Short blonde hair, was wearing a pink jumper, looked pretty cute,” he states and nods to himself.

“Sounds pretty cute too. Okay and how’d you guys start talking?” Seungcheol presses.

“Well, it started off with me asking him to move over so that I could grab some Sour Patch Kids, then he turned around and started weeping into my arms.” Hansol laughs a bit recalling the ridiculous situation.

He goes to place the grocery bags in the kitchen and then heads back to sit on the couch. He looks up at his roommates to see them slightly confused. Seungcheol sits back down on the couch next to him.

“Wait a minute,” Mingyu says and raises his index finger. “You mean ‘he’ as in a guy?” he asks.

“Uh. Yeah, no. Yeah, it’s a guy.” Hansol nods.

A few silent seconds pass before Mingyu starts shouting. “Holy shit! I Fucking knew it! Coups, I told you so! I was fucking _right_.”

Hansol looks at Mingyu then back at Seungcheol, his eyebrows furrowed. “What?”

“Uh,” Seungcheol starts. “Well, Mingyu and I may or may not have, you know, speculated about your orientation before?”

“And _I_ was right, whereas our Seungcheolie here was wrong!” Mingyu giggles to himself. He sits down on Hansol’s other side and puts an arm around him.

Hansol is still confused, but he decides that it’s best not to think about it too hard.

“Hansol,” Mingyu starts. “You and I are the same. I knew it. My gaydar is always on point,” he announces proudly.

Hansol blinks at him. “By ‘the same’ you mean…?”

“I mean we’re both not straight,” he clarifies.

“Oh, really? Mingyu, you’re…?”

“I’m gay. Well, mostly gay,” Mingyu answers.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Hansol asks him, slightly upset that his roommate withheld this information from him.

Seungcheol snorts. “Are you kidding me? You’re trying to tell me it wasn’t obvious?”

“Wait,” Hansol stops them. “What about you,” he turns around to face Seungcheol and points at him.

“I’m straight,” he says firmly.

This time it’s Mingyu’s time to snort. “Right, as long as Jeonghan’s not around.”

Seungcheol stares back at Mingyu with a menacing look. “Mind your own damn business how about that?”

Mingyu raises his hands to show that he surrenders. “Anyway, I’m happy our Hansolie finally got a date.” He pets Hansol’s head.

“Yeah, whatever.” Hansol gets up from the couch and starts heading towards his shared room with Seungcheol. “Call me when dinner’s ready.”

Mingyu sighs dramatically. “Kids. They think that their mothers exist solely to feed them and clean for them. Ungrateful brat.”

“I can still hear you, mom.” Hansol laughs as he closes the door behind him.

He plops down on his bed and opens up Twitter. As he’s scrolling, his phone notifies him of a text message. His heart beats a little faster as he opens up Seungkwan’s text.

 

_From: Seungkwan  
To: Hansol_

_so, what were you thinking for our date?_

 

Hansol can’t stop but smile to himself. A part of him was afraid that they would never actually text each other, that their meeting was really just a one time thing.

 

_From: Hansol  
To: Seungkwan_

_hmm well since this is for u to treat yourself lets do something that u wanna do_

_From: Seungkwan  
To: Hansol_

_I wanna do whatever you wanna do_

Hansol sighs to himself and he thinks that _of course_ Seungkwan would be the type to say stuff like that. He’s still smiling though.

 

_From: Hansol  
To: Seungkwan_

_ok well i wanna do whatever would make u happy_

After he sends the message he cringes a bit. Was that weird? No, it’s not weird. He’s just being honest. Should he have made a decision though? Is Seungkwan going to think he’s some lame dude who can’t make decisions? To be fair though, it’s not like Seeungkwan is any better, so he calms down a bit.

 

_From: Seungkwan  
To: Hansol_

_Alright. Well I was thinking that we could do all of the things you mentioned. We could start off by going to a café, then shopping, then go to the movies, and then finish off at a restaurant._

_From: Hansol  
To: Seungkwan_

_tbh that’s a lot of money to spend in a day, r u sure?_

_From: Seungkwan  
To: Hansol_

_yeah I know but since im treating myself I don’t see why not. I could pay for your movie ticket if you want? Since I am sorta the one whos dragging you into it_

_From: Hansol  
To: Seungkwan_

_Nah its fine don’t worry about it, sounds like a plan_

_From: Hansol  
To: Seungkwan_

_when do you want to do it?_

_From: Seungkwan  
To: Hansol_

_Are you free tomorrow?_

Tomorrow’s a Sunday and Hansol doesn’t have anything better to do. They finalize their plans and he spends some time just rolling around in his bed, giddy with excitement. Hansol realizes that he probably seems like some sort of middle school girl excited for some lame upcoming dance, but he also realizes that there’s nobody around to judge him so he doesn’t mind so much.

The rest of the day goes down as it usually does, Mingyu and Seungcheol ask him some more about Seungkwan and spend some time teasing him. That night, when he’s laying in bed, he finds that it’s a bit harder to go to sleep, excitement and nervousness keeping him up. He tells himself that the sooner he falls asleep, the sooner he’ll get to see Seungkwan again, and with that, he eventually manages to slip into unconsciousness.

Tomorrow will be a good day, he thinks to himself somewhere along the line.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hope you enjoyed that! I might continue on this story, might not. Whatever.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Seungkwan goes on a date with Hansol.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> aaa yes, the second part that some people requested. its so much longer than the first part, and the first part wasnt even supposed to be as long as it was, sigh. 
> 
> enjoy this though! u better. i didnt suffer for nothing

It’s finally the big day. Well, actually, putting it like that makes it sound like it’s been long awaited, while, really, Seungkwan only had to wait approximately a day for this big day to come. But still, that doesn’t mean that he hasn’t been stressing his life.

He still can’t believe what had happened yesterday. There he was, shopping for food that would help distract him from his misery, then, all of a sudden, he’s crying into an attractive man’s arms. Honestly, Seungkwan had seen him from the corner of his eyes before any of that happened, and he was kind of hoping that he’d get to avoid him because there’s no way that he’s going to let somebody that attractive look at him in the state that he was. Obviously, things took a turn when the attractive man spoke to him, and Seungkwan couldn’t help but feel like the most pathetic person on earth, because god couldn’t even give him this one small break.

Things worked out though, cause now he’s got a date with Hansol. He’s shocked that he got the courage to ask him out. It’s just that he really enjoyed spending time shopping with him and the idea of never seeing him again made him sad enough to do something about it. To be fair, though, Seungkwan only asked if Hansol would like to accompany him as he treated himself, but when Hansol had asked him if it was a date, his mind went blank. Then, when Hansol said that it _could_ be a date, Seungkwan thought that maybe god really was looking out for him.

He shoves the last of his Oreo cookie into his mouth before finally deciding to get ready. It was currently around 1PM and they had agreed to meet at 2PM near a café that wasn’t too far away from the grocery store they met in. After that, they’d go shopping. Seungkwan doesn’t really feel like buying anything, it was just an excuse to be able to spend more time with Hansol. Though he will get a few things for himself because otherwise it would be weird, he figures. Once they’re done, they’ll head to the movies and decide what to watch once they get there, and then they’ll end their day going to a casual restaurant. Seungkwan thinks that it should go pretty well.

As he steps outside and makes his way to the bus stop, he can’t help but wonder if this is really a good idea. On one hand, he knows that he needs to distract himself from everything and it will do him good to spend time with someone new. On the other hand, he doesn’t know if he’s mentally and emotionally steady enough for this. What if he ends up crying again? What if, at some point, Hansol realizes how truly annoying he actually is. He feels a frown forming on his face at those thoughts. He shouldn’t think negatively or it’ll certainly affect his behavior, and the last thing he wants is for Hansol to sense his negativity.

Once he almost arrives at his destination, he feels his phone vibrate. He gets it out only to feel another frown on his face. He swipes the notification of the text message away and puts his phone back into his pink jacket’s pocket. Nope. He’s not going to let anybody ruin anything for him and he’s going to do his darn best to ignore the guilt he feels for ignoring Jeonghan’s message.

He steps into the café and looks around to see if Hansol might have already arrived. To his luck, he spots him sitting at a table near a window and he walks over to him with a slight bounce in his step. Hansol looks up to meet his eyes and gives him a toothy grin. “Hey,” he says and waves him over.

“Hey,” Seungkwan returns his greeting and goes to sit down at the other side of the table. “I hope I didn’t keep you waiting,” he says this while knowing that he’s a few minutes early, and there’s no way Hansol could have possibly waited too long. Seungkwan looks down to see that Hansol is already holding a drink, and there’s even one there for him too. “Did you order this for me?” He points at the cup of what looks like something very sweet, if any of that whipped cream says anything.

“I did.” He glances down to look at the cup as well. “I don’t exactly know your tastes super well, but I figured that you like sweet things, so I got you a white chocolate mocha.” He raises his head again to look at Sungkwan. “I hope you like it.”

Seungkwan can’t help but smile at him. “I _do_ like sweet things, though I’ve never tried one of these before. Thank you,” he says as he picks up the drink and takes a sip from it. After carefully examining the taste of the drink, he decides that he likes it, and not only because Hansol is the one who got it for him.

“So,” Hansol starts. “How are you feeling today?” He takes a sip of his own drink, which, Seungkwan notes, looks rather plain compared to the one in his hands.

“I could be better.” Seungkwan considered lying and telling him that he’s all good, but what would be the point of that? He decides that a relationship, romantic or not, shouldn’t be built on lies. “I don’t feel as bad as yesterday, but I’m not ready to take on all of my problems just yet.”

“That makes sense.” Hansol nods. “If you would have told me that you were completely fine today it would have been pretty weird,” he says with a small laugh, one which Seungkwan thinks is the absolute cutest. “As long as you’re not about to break down and we can go through the day without me having to hold you in my arms as you cry, I think it should be good.” Seungkwan laughs at that but he also feels himself blushing from embarrassment. “Not that it would be a problem if that happened. It’s fine if it does,” he adds after a second.

“Well I’m glad to hear that if I break down at least you won’t abandon me,” Seungkwan says in a jokingly manner. After a short moment, he feels his smile slip from his lips. “Actually, one of my friends, the backstabber, texted me before I came here,” he confesses and takes another sip of his drink.

“Oh? What did they say?” Hansol asks with what Seungkwan assumes is genuine curiosity.

“I don’t know,” he admits. “Honestly I kind of just ignored the message as soon as I got it. I thought that it would be best to ignore it until the day ends, but I feel like if I don’t read it I would feel too guilty to enjoy myself either way. What do you think I should do?” He bites his lip and waits for Hansol to reply.

“That’s a tough question,” Hansol sighs after trying to find an answer. “I’m going to say that you shouldn’t read it. You don’t know what it is, and if it’s something bad it could ruin your day, so leave it until later tonight,” he says firmly. “In the mean time, I’ll do my best at distracting you from the guilt and hopefully it’ll work out.” He shows Seungkwan another one of his grins, and Seungkwan thinks that it shouldn’t be too hard for Hansol to distract him.

“Alright, sounds like a plan.” Seungkwan flashes him a grin of his own.

They finish up their drinks and step outside to start heading toward their next location, which happens to be a mall that’s about a 15-minute walk from the café. It was a bit chillier than what Seungkwan had expected and he takes a look at what Hansol is wearing. Seungkwan feels himself shiver as he takes in the tears in Hansol’s jeans. He’s also wearing a white hoodie that Seungkwan gets the urge to try on himself. Like, stealing it from Hansol and all. “Aren’t you cold in those jeans?” Seungkwan asks him

“Huh?” Hansol glances down and seems to have forgotten about his outfit. “Nah, I’m fine. Good, even.” He looks back up to Seungkwan. “I like your shirt, it’s cute.” He points at Seungkwan’s doughnut print shirt.

“Thank you,” he says cheerfully. “I thought that doughnuts would help me in distracting myself from my emotional pain. Maybe I should have gotten a doughnut from the café,” he starts to ponder.

Hansol slows his walk a bit before eventually stopping, making Seungkwan stop with him. “We could go back if you want?” He points behind himself towards the general direction of where they came from, and he looks so serious. He looks as if he’s really willing to go back all of that distance just so Seungkwan can get a doughnut.

Seungkwan snorts. “No, it’s fine. I’m too lazy to walk back there anyway. Besides, I should probably be losing weight anyway.” He looks at Hansol and is met with his furrowed eyebrows.

“Dude, it’s just a doughnut. I’m sure that you’d be able to burn it off with all of the walking anyway if we go back,” he offers. “Besides, why do you need to be losing weight?” He shoves his hands into his hoodie’s pockets.

Seungkwan turns away and starts walking again and Hansol follows. “Just because. I’ve been letting myself go lately.” He starts feeling uncomfortable because of the subject and tries to switch topics. “Anyway, I haven’t really planned anything to buy once we get to the mall, do you have any suggestions?”

Hansol catches up to him and let’s out a thoughtful hum. “Well, is there anything that you might need?” Seungkwan shakes his head to say no. “Okay, well is there anything that you’ve been wanting but stopped yourself from getting?”

This time Seungkwan is the one thoughtfully humming. “Not really, no. At least nothing that I can think of.” They stop at an intersection and wait for their turn to cross. “I guess we can just walk around and I’ll see if there’s anything I want to get.”

“Sounds like a plan,” Hansol agrees with him. Once they cross the street, they walk the remaining distance and have a casual conversation about this and that. They get to the mall and decide to look at a map to decide where to head to first. Hansol says that they should start off by going to cheaper places because that way Seungkwan would be able to buy more stuff, but Seungkwan argues that he would end up spending too much money because then he’ll be buying more things under the impression that it’s cheaper, even though it all adds up in the end. They bicker like that for a while until Seungkwan has had enough.

“You know what?” he huffs and crosses his arms. “I’m not really in the mood to shop. Let’s go ride the mechanical horses they have,” he says with a serious face.

Hansol pauses and takes in Seungkwan’s expression, looking to see if he’s maybe joking. “Are you serious?” he asks, seemingly not completely opposed to the idea but not sure if they should really be doing that.

“Yeah?” Seungkwan shrugs. “Why not?”

Hansol can’t help but laugh a bit. “I mean okay, sure. We’re here so that you can treat yourself after all, who am I to say no if you want to steal some kid’s temporary joy.”

Seungkwan scoffs. “Excuse me?” he says in an offended tone. “I’m not _stealing_ anything. I have just as much right to ride one of those things as any kid does. Is there some sort of law that stops me from doing that?” Hansol stares at him without offering an answer. “Exactly, that’s what I thought. So let’s go.”

“Do you even know where they are?” Hansol asks as Seungkwan starts walking off into a random direction. After letting out a short breath, he starts following after him.

“Uh,” he hesitates. “No, but how hard could it be to figure it out?” Seungkwan shrugs again and that’s how they end up circling the mall a few times without even realizing it.

After a while, Hansol finally starts picking up that something is off. “Hey, I think we might have been here before,” he tells Seungkwan and slows his walk.

Seungkwan frowns and glances at him. “Really? I don’t think we have though,” he says confidently. “I think it’s just that everything sort of looks the same,” he tries to explain on behalf of the other boy. “You’re probably imagining it.”

His date gives him a skeptical look but doesn’t say anything else. A good while passes before Hansol says anything again. “Listen, I’m telling you we already passed this exact lingerie shop. I know this because I can clearly remember the 2 for 1 thong sale, only available this Sunday.” He points at the shop in question. Sure enough, Seungkwan does see the sign about the sale.

“Of course you would notice the 2 for 1 thong sale,” Seungkwan snorts and gives him a teasing smirk.

Hansol raises his eyebrows. “And what the hell does that mean?” he asks defensively. “I just happened to notice it, it’s all pink and stuff. It’s meant to stand out.” He crosses his arms.

“Yeah, okay. Whatever you say Mr. Not-A-Pervert.”  Seungkwan giggles at the dirty look that Hansol gives him and skips away to continue his search for the mechanical horses.

“But I’m not a pervert,” he mutters and feels himself blushing at such an accusation. Seungkwan smiles at that and stops in front of a shop. Hansol looks up at the sign and sees that it’s some sort of body care store and gives the other boy a questioning look.

“You know what?” Seungkwan turns to him. “I want to get myself a bath bomb.” He stares at Hansol, waiting for an answer.

“Okay, yeah, sure. If you want one then why not?” Hansol smiles at him. They both enter the store and Seungkwan’s nose is immediately greeted with all sorts of pleasant odors. He turns to look at Hansol, and the other doesn’t seem as pleased.

“What’s wrong?” Seungkwan asks. Before Hansol can answer, they get approached by a sales lady.

“Hello, can I help you find anything?” she asks them in an overexaggerated friendly tone, the kind that Seungkwan knows is covering months, maybe years of suffering working with customer service.

“Yeah, I’m looking for bath bombs?” Seungkwan says, though it sounds more like a question rather than a statement.

She smiles and leads him to an area of the store. “Is this for your girlfriend? Or maybe your mom?” she asks him politely as she stops in front of a display of different bath bombs.

Seungkwan smiles embarrassedly. “No, it’s actually for myself,” he says in an unsure tone.

The lady realizes her mistake but doesn’t drop her positive demeaner. “Alright, what kind of bath bomb are you looking for?”

They discuss all the different types and Seungkwan isn’t quite sure what he’s talking about, but he ends up settling on some bomb called ‘Love and Sunshine’ and another one called ‘Warm Vanilla Sugar.’ He heads to the checkout and notices that Hansol isn’t following him. He frowns but goes to pay anyway, then turns back to try to find his date. He spots him waiting outside of the shop and walks up to him.

“Hey, what’s wrong?” Seungkwan asks him with a pout. Hansol stares at him blankly, seemingly trying to find his words. When he doesn’t answer, Seungkwan waves his hand in front of him. “Hello?”

Hansol stares at Seungkwan for a few more seconds in a daze. “That,” he starts and pauses. “That smell was _intense_.” Seungkwan gives him a funny look. “No, seriously, I couldn’t fucking breathe in there and I think it messed with my brain.”

“What are you talking about? It smelled nice in there.” It really did smell nice. Seungkwan thinks he wouldn’t mind it if his own room smelled like that.

“Are you kidding me?” Hansol looks at him in disbelief. “That was one of the most suffocating things I have ever experienced, I am never entering that place ever again.” He runs a hand through his hair. “Dude, can you, like, get high from those scents?” he asks with what seems to be actual seriousness, and Seungkwan can’t help but laugh at him.

“What are you on about?” he hits his arm. “You better not have gotten high from that, you still have a date to finish with me.” He crosses his arms and pouts at Hansol again.

Hansol seems to relax a bit. “You’re right, you’re right. Let’s go find those mechanical horses.” He hesitates for a second, but then he stretches his arm out and offers his hand to Seungkwan. Seungkwan blushes a bit and thinks that he might be misunderstanding, but he’s pretty sure Hansol wants to hold hands. Instead of grabbing it, though, he just stares at the hand. Hansol shakes it a bit and looks at Seungkwan with raised eyebrows. “Do you not want to hold hands?” he finally asks.

Seungkwan blushes and takes it. “I wasn’t sure if that’s what you wanted,” he mutters shyly. “Holding hands on the first date, I think we’re going pretty fast,” he jokes.

Hansol laughs and squeezes his hand. “Has it really been that long since you’ve touched another human being?” he teases him.

Seungkwan hits him with the bag that he’s holding in his other hand. “Maybe,” he rolls his eyes but doesn’t argue any further. They start walking again, searching for the damn mechanical horses. After a while, Seungkwan sighs. “Maybe they don’t even have them in this mall,” he says with exasperation.

Hansol shrugs. “I don’t know. I’m pretty sure I’ve seen some around here before, maybe they removed them?” he offers.

Seungkwan whines at that. “But why would they remove them? What’s next? They’re gonna remove children’s dreams and aspirations as well? Then they’re gonna remove the ice cream shop and popcorn shop and then they’re gonna remove anything remotely enjoyable and we’ll all die in this cold, joyless and god forsaken world!” Seungkwan throws his free arm up.

Seungkwan looks over to Hansol and sees that the other boy is very amused. “Don’t worry, I’m sure you’ll get to ride those machines soon enough. I know they should be somewhere around here if they haven’t been removed,” he tries to calm Seungkwan down, and it works. They continue their search and even decide to take a short break to sit on one of the benches, because Seungkwan just isn’t used to walking around so much.

“Hey,” Hansol speaks up as they’re taking their break, “what kind of bath bombs did you get back there?” he asks and points to the bag on Seungkwans right side.

Seungkwan let’s go of his hand to reach for the bag and places it on his own lap. “Well I got this one that’s called ‘Love and Sunshine,’” he takes out the bomb in question and shows it off, “and this other once named ‘Warm Vanilla Sugar.’” He shows off the second one in a similar fashion before putting them both back.

“Wow,” Hansol snorts, “Those are both such lame names.”

Seungkwan looks at him, completely offended. “ _You_ have a lame name.” In that moment, Seungkwan realizes that he doesn’t even know his dates full name. Would it be weird to ask now? Should he have already known this information? Seungkwan is fairly certain that they hadn’t exchanged full names, though.

He doesn’t even have to ask before Hansol says, “I don’t know, Hansol Vernon Chwe is a pretty cool name if you ask me,” he shrugs and gives him a smug look.

“Hansol Vernon Chwe?” Seungkwan repeats and looks at the other boy confusedly.

“Yeah, my dad’s Korean but my mom is white, that’s why Vernon is my middle name,” he explains to him.

Seungkwan let’s out an ‘oh’ sound. That makes sense. “Vernon,” he tests the name and thinks that it does sound pretty cool. Great, now his own name feels lame. “Okay, I’ll have to agree that Hansol Vernon Chwe is cooler than Boo Seungkwan,” he admits.

Hansol chuckles and says, “I wasn’t saying my name is cooler than yours, it’s just cooler than the bath bombs.” Seungkwan blushes and mutters a ‘whatever.’

They sit around some more before Seungkwan says, “So, Vernon, shall we continue our quest?” and offers his hand. After giving him a nod, Hansol takes his it and they both get up to keep searching.

“Oh my god,” Seungkwan says after maybe 5 minutes of walking around. “There they are!” He points at them and Hansol follows his gaze. There they were. Seungkwan looks at the machines and sees some kids with their impatient parents and, all of a sudden, something hits him and he realizes that he doesn’t feel like riding them anymore.

“Alright then, it’s time for you to finally have your fun.” Hansol starts walking towards them and tries to pull Seungkwan along, but when he realizes that the other boy isn’t moving, he stops and turns to look at him. “What is it?”

Seungkwan isn’t sure how to break it to him. They spent all of this time trying to figure out where these contraptions were, and now Seungkwan feels too embarrassed to actually ride any of them. It seemed possible in theory. He thought that he could ignore the glances that people might give him if he were to sit his grown-up ass on one, but now the thought of it is making him want to turn around and never come back.

Hansol is staring at him, waiting for a reply, and Seungkwan guesses that there’s no better way to say it. “I kind of don’t want to anymore.”

Hansol continues staring him, facial expression completely blank. “What?” he asks, making sure that he didn’t mishear.

“I said I don’t want to anymore,” Seungkwan repeats himself, trying to sound clearer. Hansol still has no expression on his face, but Seungkwan can feel the grip on his hand tightening a bit, and if that’s not telling, he doesn’t know what is.

“But. We went through all of that trouble,” Hansol starts trying to reason with him, and Seungkwan feels kind of bad because he knows that he’ll be the one to win the argument anyway. Hansol won’t force him to do it if he doesn’t want to.

“I know, but I guess sometimes you have to go through a lot of effort just to realize that the end result isn’t something that you wanted all along,” he says and Hansol takes a deep breath.

“Okay,” he says after a few short seconds, “you’re right. That’s fine. If you don’t want to anymore then so be it, I guess.” Seungkwan sheepishly smiles at him. “But then what do you want to do now?” he asks.

Seungkwan takes his phone out and checks the time. It’s nearing 4:30PM. “We could start heading to the movies I guess, by the time we get there and decide what to watch it’ll be around five.”

“Alright, sounds good to me,” Hansol says and, with that, they make their way to their next location. It doesn’t take them too long to get there and, when they arrive, Hansol proposes that they watch a horror movie that came out recently.

“Is this your plan to get me to cling to you? Because it’s not going to work,” Seungkwan huffs. The excuse to cling to Hansol _does_ seem appealing, but there’s just no way he’s going to sit through a horror movie. It’s simply not worth it.

“I bet you’d love to cling to me, though. Why not?” Hansol asks him with a pout and shoves at his arms lightly.

“I simply can’t handle horror,” Seungkwan explains. “As tempting as it is, I don’t think I’ll be able to sit through all of that without actually pissing myself.” There’s a finality in his voice that stops Hansol from arguing further, but his date still chuckles. “You laugh at that but I swear to god it’s happened to me before as a kid. I thought I could be all tough and my friends would think that I was cool, but…” he doesn’t finish the sentence, letting Hansol fill in the blanks.

“Nah, it’s fine. Just pick anything to watch and we’ll watch that. And, hey, if you want, you can cling to me anyway,” Hansol says with a wink that makes Seungkwan blush. They settle on watching some comedy movie and debate whether or not they should buy snacks, but considering that they’re going to eat later, they decide not to.

Once they settle down inside the theater, Hansol’s offer pops into Seungkwan’s mind. The one about clinging on to him. He shouldn’t do that just yet, though, since the advertisements have barely finished playing. Seungkwan tells himself that he’ll do it about halfway through the movie. Yes, that sounds like a good plan.

Somewhere around ten minutes in, Seungkwan notices Hansol yawning and stretching his arms, the way somebody does when they try to put their arm around someone. Seungkwan gets his hopes up, but Hansol kind of accidentally hits him in the face instead. “Oh my god, I’m so sorry,” he apologizes, but Seungkwan tells him that it’s fine. Hansol keeps his arms to himself and Seungkwan can’t help but sigh in frustration.

Really, the movie is pretty funny and Seungkwan’s enjoying it. However, he feels like he would enjoy it more if he somehow had some sort of physical contact with his date. Don’t ask him to explain how that would make the movie better, it just would. So, when something funny happens and everyone in the theater erupts with laughter, Seungkwan thinks that he can smoothly land a hand on Hansol’s thigh, or anywhere, really. But after he finishes clapping from laughter, his hand goes down and hits Hansol right in the crotch, making the boy next to him grunt in pain. 

Fantastic, Boo Seungkwan.

Hansol ends up laughing at how flustered Seungkwan becomes and tells him that it’s fine, but Seungkwan really just wants to crawl into a hole and die. Then the thought of him dying without even getting to touch Hansol at the movies makes him upset, and he decided to not die until after. Seungkwan really has his priorities set straight. Unlike him. He laughs at his own joke. 

They’re already halfway through the movie, and Seungkwan has yet to establish physical contact with the other boy. He thinks that if he just clings to Hansol, the other wouldn’t mind it. After all, he’s the one who offered it, so where’s the problem? The thing is that Seungkwan doesn’t know how to do it smoothly. Any time he tries to get closer to Hansol, he just feels award and chickens out. Guess he’ll die, then.

It's not a big deal, nope. Why is Seungkwan making such a big deal out of this? To be fair, he makes a big deal out of everything. It’s such a tiring life to live, trust him. Whenever someone tells him to stop making a big deal out of things, he just wishes they knew that he wants that as much as they do. He feels himself deflating and tries to settle with the fact that he has to watch this movie without getting comfortable with Hansol. That’s fine. He’s fine. He just hopes as much as he can that maybe Hansol will take the initiative himself.

When the movie starts reaching its climax, Seungkwan gets surprised when he feels Hansol wrap an arm around Seungkwan’s own, and he silently cries tears of joy. The world has decided to take pity on him, and he couldn’t be any happier. Sometimes, blindly hoping for something to happen without taking the right initiative yourself actually does pay off, and Seungkwan couldn’t be any happier to learn that fact.

He doesn’t even really pay attention to the finale of the movie. Something about Hansol’s whole being is a lot more interesting to him. He finds himself staring at Hansol’s face from the corner of his eye, and holy fuck is he handsome. He turns to look at him a bit better, and he thinks that his nose is probably the best nose he’s ever seen. Those eyebrows? Gorgeous. Those eyes? Mesmerizing. That jawline? It might as well be cutting through Seungkwan’s heart with how sharp it is.

He only actually realizes how intensely he’s staring when the other boy turns to look at him. Hansol raises his eyebrows in a silent question, and Seungkwan feels his face heat up. He shakes his head and turns back towards the screen, but he still has a hard time actually paying attention to the movie. He’s more focused on the heat radiating from Hansol’s body, on how nice his arm feels wrapped around Seungkwan’s own. He really wants to touch him more, to trace every single part of the boy’s body with his finger tips. He wants to trace those eyelid, that nose, that jawline. He wants to trace his thumb over Hansol’s lower lip and, okay, Seungkwan needs to calm down _right now_. His gay thoughts are getting too intense for someone that he just met yesterday.

Come to think of it, it’s kind of odd how he only met Hansol yesterday, and yet it feels like they’ve known each other for a long time. There’s just something about him that puts Seungkwan at ease, that makes him feel like he can be himself around him. He thinks that it’s probably a good thing, because that way they can skip over the whole awkward phase that comes with any kind of relationship, but he also thinks that it’s not that great because now he can’t stop thinking about how much he wants him. It’s really weird to want someone who you barely actually know that much.

The movie finishes and the two of them sit around for a bit so that there’s less people and that it’s easier for them to move around. Once they exit, Hansol looks at him and says, “So what did you think?”

“It was actually funnier than I expected it to be,” Seungkwan says truthfully, “and overall pretty good. I’m glad we went to see that instead of the horror movie.” Hansol looks like he wants to say something, but doesn’t. “What is it?”

“Hm?” Hansol gives him an innocent look. “Nothing.” He shrugs and they head towards the small dining area to sit down and discuss where they should have dinner. They keep checking for restaurants, but they’re either too expensive or you need to have a reservation. Hansol gets frustrated and says that they should just eat the overpriced movie theater food but Seungkwan shuts him down.

“Okay, look,” he shows him a restaurant on his phone, “this BBQ place seems pretty decent and it’s not that pricey, and it’s only a ten-minute walk from here.” Hansol looks at it and nods. Seungkwan turns his phone back to him to look at the directions and mutters, “We should have probably decided where to go beforehand, though.”

“I’ll remind you that I suggested it, but you told me that we could just wing it,” Hansol brings up. Seungkwan gives him a dirty look and he understands not to say anything else.

By the time that they exit the building, it’s around 6:40PM and when they get to the place it’s almost 7PM. They could have gotten there faster, but Seungkwan ended up getting a bit confused with the directions.

They get seated at a booth and start deciding what to eat when Seungkwan feels his phone vibrate. He takes it out by reflex and immediately regrets it. Hansol sends him a questioning look when he sees his frown. “It’s my friend,” Seungkwan explains. “He sent me another message.”

“The same one from earlier today?” Hansol asks him with concern on his face. Seungkwan thinks that he’d much rather see him laughing or rolling his eyes at something stupid that Seungkwan might say. Seeing him with this sort of expression makes his gut feel uncomfortable.

“Yeah, that one,” he answers. “Hey, I just realized that I actually managed to not think about the whole situation at all so far.” He smiles at Hansol.

Hansol smiles back and says, “See? I told you that I’d do my best at distracting you. I’m happy that it worked.” His smile fades a little, but it’s still there. “How about you check the messages after we finish eating, that way if there’s anything upsetting about them you could vent to me about it,” he proposes.

Seungkwan breathes out and thinks for a moment. “The thing is,” he starts and tries to formulate his words properly, “I wouldn’t want to bother you with that. You’ve already done so much for me already. Even yesterday you put up with my ranting and now you’re accompanying me and trying to make me feel better. You’re being too nice.”

Hansol knits his brows. “Well, maybe there’s a reason I’ve done all of that,” he starts but gets interrupted by a waitress. They give her their order and she pours them some water, then walks away with a tight-lipped smile. “Yeah, as I was saying,” Hansol continues, “I’m not trying to help you out just because of some sort of obligation,” he tries to explain. He hesitantly places a hand on top of one of Seungkwan’s across the table.

Seungkwan looks down at their hands and feels a shiver run up his body. Great, now he’s getting butterflies in his stomach as if he’s back in high school and his crush looked at him for a second. “What do you mean?” he asks and looks back up at his date.

“Well,” Hansol shrugs, “what do you think? You think that I’d go out of my way to make you feel better for no reason at all?” He sighs when Seungkwan doesn’t answer him. “I’m saying that I like you, Boo Seungkwan. I’ve really enjoyed the time we’ve spent together so far. From the grocery store to the mechanical horses. From the café to sitting with you right here. I know it’s weird to say this since we were strangers like 2 days ago, but I feel really comfortable with you, and it really sucks to see you being upset,” he finishes his confession and takes a sip of his water.

Seungkwan sits there for a while and let’s the information sink in. He stares at Hansol and tries really hard to figure out how to tell him that he feels the same way he does, so he smoothly and eloquently says, “Oh. Same.” He immediately feels stupid so he takes Hansol’s hand and squeezes it, while bringing his other hand up to hide his face.

Hansol giggles and brings his free hand to join the other one so that he’s holding the boy with the both of them. “I’m glad you feel the same. You know, I’m actually pretty bad at feelings,” he begins saying. “Like, I have a hard time figuring out what I’m feeling and an even harder time explaining it to other people. But for some reason, you’re able to make all of that clearer for me. A bit. I mean, I’ll admit that I’m still kind of confused on some things and generally don’t understand it all, but I know that I like you, at least.”

“I like you too, Hansol Vernon Chwe. I like you a lot. Too much, even,” he scowls at himself and his weakness for handsome and caring guys. “I’m genuinely happy that we met, even if it involved me crying in a candy aisle,” he says with a giggle. “And putting my whole friend situation aside, I would have loved to hang out or, actually, go on a date with you even without the need to distract myself.”

Hansol lets out a breath that sounds like it's been held in all day. “Okay, see, that’s something I was worried about. I was kind of scared that I would just be some kind of temporary distraction to you, and after things got resolved you’d put me aside, sort of,” he confesses.

Seungkwan gasps and looks at Hansol with wide eyes. “I would never do that! What the hell are you even saying?” he scoffs. “No, I would never do that to someone, trust me. I’ve been on the receiving end of that treatment more times than anyone should be.”

“Yeah, I guessed that you wouldn't do that,” Hansol says with a small grin, “but considering that we haven’t known each other for too long, how was I supposed to know for sure?”

Seungkwan rolls his eyes at him. “Yeah, fine, makes sense.” He brings his free hand to join Hansol’s and his other one. He plays with the hands a bit before realizing something. “Oh, also, yeah. I’ll read the messages after we eat, since apparently, you like me so much that you’d fight twenty bears for me,” he teases.

Hansol shakes his head but he’s still smiling. “Not quite what I said, but sure. Don’t think that I’d actually win against the bears, though.” He sees the waitress approaching them with their food after a while, and he let’s go of Seungkwan’s hands and brings his arms back to himself. It’s a shame that Seungkwan can’t eat food while holding onto the other boy’s hands at the same time, because if there was a way, he’d be doing it.

They sit and eat in silence before they start a conversation about Hansol’s roommates. Hansol tells him all sorts of things about them. Seungkwan learns that one of them is named Mingyu and that he’s super tall and handsome and cool looking, but his personality is nothing that you’d expect it to be. Hansol talks about him and makes him sound kind of annoying, but Seungkwan can definitely pick up on the fondness in his voice. Then he learns about Seungcheol, who’s apparently also really handsome. Seungcheol is more serious than Mingyu, but only when he wants to be. The rest of the time he comes across as pretty carefree and even ridiculous in some aspects, but Hansol seems to really love him as well.

“What about you, do you have any roommates?” Hansol asks him while chewing on some chicken. Seungkwan wants to scold him and tell him to not speak with his mouth full, but he decides to let it slide. For now.

“I do, actually. His name is Jihoon, and if I’m gonna be honest, I don’t even know how I managed to learn anything about him,” Seungkwan says and sees the confused look Hansol gives him. “We were only acquaintances when we moved in together, and I swear to god that man is always busy. He’s always working on something or he’s always out somewhere and I barely see him around. I think he does stuff with music, but he’s never bothered to explain it to me in detail.” He recalls all the times that he’d tried to ask his roommate what he did on that computer of his for hours and hours, but Jihoon would only give a vague reply or say some stuff that Seungkwan didn’t quite understand, so he just gave up after a while.

“Sounds kind of fishy,” Hansol says. “What if he’s doing some sort of…” he pauses for dramatic effect, “Illegal stuff,” he whispers.

Seungkwan laughs and shakes his head. “Nah, I don’t think so. I mean, I can’t know for sure but I highly doubt it. Let me explain how Jihoon is. At first, when you meet him, you automatically want to coo at him, pick him up and take care of him, because he looks that darn cute. Then, when you get to know him a bit more, you get kind of afraid of him. You learn that he’s pretty serious and that he doesn’t fuck around. He’s suddenly not _that_ cute. But then, when you get to know him even better, you realize that he’s very sweet and caring. He says that he hates being touched by people, but I’ve actually ended up cuddled up with him watching shows late at night and he was _all_ over me. He likes to act all tough, which he actually can be, but he’s definitely softer than what he claims to be.”

"Huh,” Hansol voices. “Sounds like a tsundere to me,” he nods and shoves some more food in his mouth.

“A what?” Seungkwan asks him, taking a bite out of his own food.

“A tsundere,” he repeats himself. When Seungkwan doesn’t understand any more, he sighs and explains, “It’s like this character trope in Japanese anime or manga. It’s when the character puts up this cool and detached front but they’re actually very sweet and caring on the inside. They’re described as tsundere.”

“Oh. Well then yeah, that’s Jihoon pretty much,” Seungkwan agrees. They continue their conversation and they learn about each other’s family’s, favorite shows and movies, hobbies and interests, and Seungkwan feels really glad to be collecting all of these bits and pieces of information on Hansol. He feels like when he gets back home, he’ll have to write everything down just in case he might end up forgetting them, which he definitely won’t, but you never know. He tells himself to not do that, though, otherwise he’d feel really creepy.

They finish their food and Seungkwan realizes two things. First, he’s going to have to look at the texts that Jeonghan sent him and face that whole situation again. Second, his day with Hansol is nearing its end. Both of these thoughts make him upset. He reminds himself that he’ll probably see Hansol again soon, though, and as long as he has that to look forward to, maybe it makes parting ways with him seem easier to do.

He takes a deep breath and announces, “Okay, time to see what my friend sent me.” Hansol nods at him and gives a serious look, ready to take on any situation that might arise. Seungkwan pulls out his phone and unlocks it. It’s somewhere around 8PM now, he notes. He opens his messaging app and presses on Jeonghan.

 

_From: Jeonghan  
To: Seungkwan_

_kwannie I know ur rly upset but I wanted to tell u that the more I think about it, the shittier I feel for doing what I did. id really like it if we could meet up and talk about it today. I want to properly apologize to you and all_

That’s the first message that was sent at the beginning of the day. Seungkwan starts feeling bad for ignoring him, but after remembering what exactly Jeonghan did, it helps him feel less bad. Still, though, Jeonghan was trying to apologize to him and Seungkwan feels like he acted like a bit of a dick.

 

_From: Jeonghan  
To: Seungkwan_

_i hope that u didn’t spend the whole day moping around, though jihoon said that you were out today so I guess I don’t feel as mad that you ignored me. For real though please answer me as soon as you can, I wont know what to do with myself until you do_

Seungkwan sighs and puts his phone down on the table. “Well,” he says, “it’s nothing bad. My friend, Jeonghan, just says that he feels bad for what he did and that he wants to apologize.”

“That’s good,” Hansol says cheerfully. “that’s really good.” He notices that Seungkwan isn’t as cheerful as he is. “What’s wrong?”

“I just feel really mean for not answering him earlier. He wanted to meet up and talk about it today, but I completely ignored him,” he frowns.

“Well, you already had plans for the day, and I’m sure that he understands if you might not want to talk to him yet,” Hansol reasons with Seungkwan. “It’ll be fine.”

Seungkwan nods and picks his phone up again to start typing out a reply to Jeonghan.

 

_From: Seungkwan  
To: Jeonghan_

_Sorry for not answering earlier. I was on a date and didn’t know if it would be a good idea to open your texts. We can talk about it whenever you want though, you really do owe me a sincere apology_

 

He sends the message and looks back up at Hansol. “And that’s that,” he says. “Shall we pay and get going?” Hansol nods and they leave the restaurant after doing so. “How are you getting back home?” Seungkwan asks.

“Oh, I was gonna get Seungcheol to pick me up. How about you?” Hansol asks and rubs his hands together for some heat. It got chillier outside and Seungkwan wants to tell him that he should have worn something warmer.

“I usually travel by bus, so yeah,” he answers and shoves his own hands in the pocket of his jacket. His right wrist has the bag with the bath bombs hanging from it, which he almost forgot about multiple times throughout the day.

Hansol frowns and says, “I could get Seungsheol to give you a ride too. He’s too kind to say no and I’m sure that he’d love to meet you. Yesterday they wouldn’t stop teasing me and asking me questions about you.”

Seungkwan blushes and feels himself giggling at the image. “I feel like I’ll be meeting your dad or something,” he jokes.

“You might as well be,” Hansol huffs. “He really is sort of like a dad now that I think of it. He’s got that kind of aura to him. But maybe a dad who had kids too young. He’s not the best dad, but he tries hard enough,” he thinks out loud. Hansol sends a text to the said dad and, once Seungcheol answers, he let’s Seungkwan know that he’ll be able to get a ride back.

They walk back and forth on the streets waiting for Hansol’s roommate to arrive and when he finally does, Seungkwan feels himself getting stressed. Maybe it’s just the anxiety of meeting someone new, but he feels like he’s supposed to impress Seungcheol. It’s not like he’s actually Hansol’s dad, but he figures that if Hansol is so close to him, he’d want his approval.

Hansol opens the door to the backseat and gestures for Seungkwan to get in, so he does. Hansol gets in next to him and closes the door. “Hey man, thanks for picking us up,” Hansol says to who Seungkwan presumes is Seungcheol.

Seungcheol turns around to do a handshake with Hansol and says, “No problem.” He turns to look at Seungkwan and smiles. “I’m glad that I get to meet the boy who makes Hansol’s heart flutter.” Seungkwan blushes, but gets interrupted before he gets to say anything. “I’m Seungcheol,” he introduces himself and offers his hand.

Seungkwan shakes it and says, “And I’m Seungkwan. It’s nice to meet you too. Hansol has told me a lot about you.”

Seungcheol turns to look at his roommate. “Oh, did you? It better only have been good things, you punk,” he warns and wags his finger at him while Hansol just snickers.

Most of the ride is just Seungcheol basically interviewing Seungkwan with Hansol telling him to leave his date alone. It also involves the older man telling embarrassing stories about Hansol and Seungkwan grows really fond of Seungcheol. He thinks that he’s a kind guy who’s just looking out for his friend, and he’s glad that Hansol has him in his life.

“Alright, Seungkwan this is your place, right? It’s actually pretty close to ours, like not even a ten-minute drive,” Seungcheol says as he pulls up in front of Seungkwan’s apartment complex. “Hansol, why don’t you walk him to his place?” he winks at Hansol and the other boy just rolls his eyes.

“Oh, you really don’t have to, it’s fine,” Seungkwan starts saying as he unbuckles his seatbelt.

“Nah, don’t worry, I’ll walk you up,” Hansol smiles at him and undoes his own seatbelt.

They get out of the car and before Hansol closes the door behind him he hears Seungcheol saying, “You kids don’t take too long now, otherwise I’ll be driving off without you Hansol.” Hansol rolls his eyes and doesn’t say anything.

They walk in and Seungkwan says, “You’re lucky that they got the elevators fixed recently, otherwise you would have suffered going up like four flights of stairs with me.” He presses on the up button next to the elevator.

“I can handle some stairs, Seungkwan. I didn’t know that I looked _that_ unfit,” he jokes.

The elevator opens and they both get in. “That’s not what I was saying. It doesn’t matter how fit you are, it’s just frustrating to use stairs if there’s supposed to be a functional elevator,” Seungkwan explains.

“Guess you’re right,” Hansol agrees. The elevator reaches the fifth floor and they both get off. They walk down the hall before Seungkwan stops in front of a door.

“Well, this is my place.” He gestures towards the door. “Thank you for today, really. It was very nice,” he says and rubs his arm sheepishly.

Hansol smiles down at him. “My pleasure, honestly. We should do it again sometime,” he suggests.

“Yeah!” Seungkwan beams. “We totally should.” He hesitates for a moment. He’s wondering if he should hug Hansol goodbye, or maybe even kiss him? No, he won’t kiss him. Okay, maybe he can kiss his cheek. Yeah, he’ll do that. “Uh,” he stutters.

“Yes?” Hansol asks and gives him an anticipating look.

Seungkwan grabs Hansol’s shoulders and sees the other’s eyes widen just a bit. “Okay, bye,” Seungkwan says quickly and goes to plant a kiss on the boy’s cheek. He goes a bit too roughly though, and ends up bumping his nose against him slightly painfully. He retreats and quickly unlocks his door, steps inside and says, “Text me!” before closing the door quickly again.

Well, that could have gone smoother. At least now Seungkwan can crawl into a hole and die peacefully, since he did end up having physical contact with Hansol during the movies after all, and now he even got to kiss him on the cheek! On top of that, he even learned that Hansol likes him. Like, actually likes him.

Maybe Seungkwan doesn’t want to die after all, but he will go crawl under his covers and shame himself for how uncool he was when he said goodbye. As soon as he steps into the living room, though, sees Jihoon’s questioning smirk and he knows he won’t be able to do that just yet.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ta-dah!!! thank you so much for reading this!! i know its not that great and that there are a few unanswered questions, but i'll leave that up to your imagination


End file.
